1830-1900: Second Industrial Revolution (Victorian Era)
November 23, 2011 http://makinghistoryrelevant.wordpress.com/author/makinghistoryrelevant/
The Second Industrial Revolution took place during the Victorian era (Queen Victoria’s reign from 1837
until her death in 1901) in the mid-19th century from 1830 to approx. 1900.
At the end of Victoria era, Britain had lost its industrial supremacy to Germany and to the USA.
In the 19th century, more and more people began crowding into America's cities, including thousands of
newly arrived immigrants seeking a better life than the one they had left behind. In New York City--where
the population doubled every decade from 1800 to 1880--buildings that had once been single-family
dwellings were increasingly divided into multiple living spaces to accommodate this growing population.
Known as tenements, these narrow, low-rise apartment buildings--many of them concentrated in the city's
Lower East Side neighborhood--were all too often cramped, poorly lit and lacked indoor plumbing and
proper ventilation. By 1900, some 2.3 million people (a full two-thirds of New York City's population)
were living in tenement housing.
The Rise of Tenement Housing
In the first half of the 19th century, many of the more affluent residents of New York's Lower
East Side neighborhood began to move further north, leaving their low-rise masonry row houses
behind. At the same time, more and more immigrants began to flow into the city, many of them
fleeing famine in Ireland or revolution in Germany. Both of these groups of new arrivals
concentrated themselves on the Lower East Side, moving into row houses that had been
converted from single-family dwellings into multiple-apartment tenements, or into new tenement
housing built specifically for that purpose.
A typical tenement building had five to seven stories and occupied nearly all of the lot upon
which it was built (usually 25 feet wide and 100 feet long, according to existing city regulations).
Many tenements began as single-family dwellings, and many older structures were converted
into tenements by adding floors on top or by building more space in rear-yard areas. With less
than a foot of space between buildings, little air and light could get in. In many tenements, only
the rooms on the street got any light, and the interior rooms had no ventilation (unless air shafts
were built directly into the room). Later, speculators began building new tenements, often using
cheap materials and construction shortcuts. Even new, this kind of housing was at best
uncomfortable and at worst highly unsafe.
Calls for Reform
New York was not the only city in America where tenement housing emerged as a way to
accommodate a growing population during the 1900s. In Chicago, for example, the Great Fire of
1871 led to restrictions on building wood-frame structures in the center of the city and
encouraged the construction of lower-income dwellings on the city's outskirts. Unlike in New
York, where tenements were highly concentrated in the poorest neighborhoods of the city, in
Chicago they tended to cluster around centers of employment, such as stockyards and
slaughterhouses.
Nowhere, however, did the tenement situation become as dire as it was in New York, particularly
on the Lower East Side. A cholera epidemic in 1849 took some 5,000 lives, many of them poor
people living in overcrowded housing. During the infamous "draft riots" that tore apart the city in
1863, rioters were not only protesting against the new military conscription policy; they were
also reacting to the intolerable conditions in which many of them were living. The Tenement
House Act of 1867 legally defined a tenement for the first time and set construction regulations;
among these were the requirement of one toilet (or privy) per 20 people.
"How the Other Half Lives"
The existence of tenement legislation did not guarantee its enforcement, however, and conditions
were little improved by 1889, when the Danish-born author and photographer Jacob Riis was
researching the series of newspaper articles that would become his seminal book "How the Other
Half Lives." Riis had experienced firsthand the hardship of immigrant life in New York City, and
as a police reporter for newspapers, including The Evening Sun, he had gotten a unique view into
the grimy, crime-infested world of the Lower East Side. Seeking to draw attention to the horrible
conditions in
which many urban
Americans were
living, Riis
photographed
what he saw in the
tenements and
used these vivid
photos to
accompany the
text of "How the
Other Half Lives,"
published in 1890.
The hard facts
included in Riis'
book--such as the
fact that 12 adults
slept in a room
some 13 feet
across, and that the
infant death rate in
the tenements was
as high as 1 in 10-stunned many in
America and
around the world
and led to a
renewed call for
reform. Two major
studies of
tenements were
completed in the
1890s, and in 1901 city officials passed the Tenement House Law, which effectively outlawed
the construction of new tenements on 25-foot lots and mandated improved sanitary conditions,
fire escapes and access to light. Under the new law--which in contrast to past legislation would
actually be enforced--pre-existing tenement structures were updated, and more than 200,000 new
apartments were built over the next 15 years, supervised by city authorities.
Family Life and Leisure
With standards of living rising, families could pursue activities such as going to the movies. This 1896
French poster advertises the Cinematographe Lumiere, the most successful motion-picture camera and
projector of its day.
What does the clothing of the people in the poster suggest about their social rank?
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale became a living legend as the
'Lady with the Lamp'. She led the nurses caring for
thousands of soldiers during the Crimean War and
helped save the British army from medical disaster.
This was just one of Florence's many achievements.
She was also a visionary health reformer, a brilliant
campaigner, the most influential woman in Victorian
Britain and its Empire, second only to Queen Victoria
herself.
At the start of Pope Benedict XVI visit to Britain in
September 2010, he praised Florence's achievements
in his Holyroodhouse speech. "We find many
examples of this force for good throughout Britain’s
long history." "Inspired by faith, women like Florence
Nightingale served the poor and the sick and set new
standards in healthcare that were subsequently copied
everywhere."
When she died in 1910, aged 90, she was famous
around the world. But who was the real Florence
Nightingale?
Florence Nightingale was born in Italy on 12th May
1820. Despite opposition from her family she decided
to devote her life to nursing and campaigning for
better health care and sanitation for all. It was her work during the Crimean War that created the
legend of the Lady with the Lamp and it was her experience here that drove her to continue,
researching, writing and tirelessly campaigning.
After the Crimean War she demanded a Royal Commission into the Military Hospitals and the
health of the Army, she began investigating the health and sanitation in the British Army in
India, and the local population. Money which had been sent by the general public to thank her
for her work in the Crimea was used to establish the first organised, training school for nurses,
the Nightingale Training School at St Thomas’ Hospital.
Her greatest achievement was to make nursing a respectable profession for women. Florence's
writings on hospital planning and organization had a profound effect in England and across the
world, publishing over 200 books, reports and pamphlets.
Florence died at the age of 90, on 13th August 1910, she had become one of the most famous
and influential women of the 19th century. Her writings continue to be a resource for nurses,
health managers and planners to this day.
Louis Pasteur
Pasteur was a French chemist and biologist who proved the germ theory of disease and invented
the process of pasteurisation.
Louis Pasteur was born on 27 December 1822 in Dole
in the Jura region of France. His father was a tanner. In
1847, he earned a doctorate from the École Normale in
Paris. After several years research and teaching in Dijon
and Strasbourg, in 1854, Pasteur was appointed
professor of chemistry at the University of Lille. Part of
the remit of the faculty of sciences was to find solutions
to the practical problems of local industries, particularly
the manufacture of alcoholic drinks. He was able to
demonstrate that organisms such as bacteria were
responsible for souring wine and beer (he later extended
his studies to prove that milk was the same), and that the
bacteria could be removed by boiling and then cooling
the liquid. This process is now called pasteurization.
Pasteur then undertook experiments to find where these
bacteria came from, and was able to prove that they
were introduced from the environment. This was
disputed by scientists who believed they could
spontaneously generate. In 1864, the French Academy
of Sciences accepted Pasteur's results. By 1865, Pasteur was director of scientific studies at the
École Normale, where he had studied. He was asked to help the silk industry in southern France,
where there was an epidemic amongst the silkworms. With no experience of the subject, Pasteur
identified parasitic infections as the cause and advocated that only disease-free eggs should be
selected. The industry was saved.
Pasteur's various investigations convinced him of the rightness of the germ theory of disease,
which holds that germs attack the body from outside. Many felt that such tiny organisms as
germs could not possibly kill larger ones such as humans. Pasteur now extended this theory to
explain the causes of many diseases - including anthrax, cholera, TB and smallpox - and their
prevention by vaccination. He is best known for his work on the development of vaccines for
rabies. In 1888, a special institute was founded in Paris for the treatment of diseases. It became
known as the Institut Pasteur. Pasteur was its director until his death on 28 September 1895. He
was a national hero and was given a state funeral.
The British Cartoon of 1910
1. Explain the political cartoon. How is each country represented?
2. What is the symbolism/message behind the illustration?
The Rise of Tenement Housing
3. Many left the lives they had in Europe for a “better life” in America. What conditions
did they come to face in the cities?
4. What were these conditions like in contrast to Industrialized cities in Europe such as
London?
5. How does Riis express the conditions of the tenements to the American public and what
is the reaction?
Cinematographe Lumiere
6. What does the clothing of the people in the poster suggest about their social rank?
7. Based on your answer, what does this poster tell you about social classes and the
changing living conditions?
Florence Nightingale
8. What is Florence Nightingale’s nickname?
9. What advances did she make and why was she such a prominent figure during the
Industrial Revolution era?
10. How is she still honored today?
11. How did she gain fame and recognition?
Louis Pasteur
12. Who is Louis Pasteur?
13. What was his position at the University of Lille?
14. What did he discover?
15. Explain the process of Pasteurization.
16. How did he save the silk industry in France?
17. What was his “germ theory of disease?”
18. What is he best known for?